Distinguished Professor Paul Spoonley is one of New Zealands leading academics and a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Aparangi. He has led numerous externally funded research programmes, has has written or edited 25 books and is a regular commentator in the news media. In 2010, he was a Fulbright SeniorScholar at the University of California, Berkeley, and in 2013, a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Max Planck Institute of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Goettingen. He was awarded the Royal Society of New Zealand Science and Technology medal in 2009 in recognition of his academic scholarship, leadership and public contribution to cultural understanding and in 2011, his contribution to Sociology was acknowledged with the Sociological Association of Aotearoa New Zealands scholarship for exceptional service to New Zealand sociology.